missing | gilinsky

33

"Jack fucking Johnson," I whisper under my breath. I want to laugh and scream at the same time but instead I stay quiet.

He is fucking here. Johnson is here in the hotel room standing right in front of Nadia and me, standing right next to Hannah. This is the moment we've been waiting for since we got to New York - hell - this is the moment Nadia and Hannah have been waiting for since Johnson first left Omaha.

"Jack," Nadia exasperates. 

Johnson's eyes find mine, he looks hurt but I can't figure out why. It pains me to have him to look at me like that, so I advert my focus to Hannah. I feel cold all over. This isn't how I planned on us finding him. 

Nadia repeats her brother's name, stepping a little closer to him. Hannah steps away but Johnson reaches out for her elbow so she stays next to him. I furrow my eyebrows. 

"What exactly is going on right now?" Nadia whimpers. I'm tempted to wrap her up in my arms to shield her from her confusion but I know she needs this moment. Johnson needs it too, even if he doesn't want it. 

"I, uh...you weren't supposed to be here until tomorrow," Johnson says, shaking his head. He can't even look at Nadia, instead his eyes find solace in the ground.

"What?" Now it's Nadia's turn to look hurt. 

"Justin said -"

"Wait," I growl. "Justin? When did you talk to Justin?"

With a sigh Johnson closes his eyes and wipes his hands up and down his face. "Listen, a lot of shit went down these past couple of days, I'm really tired." 

The room fills with silence. I feel a pang of anger in my stomach. How could he just dismiss us like that? Why did he even come here if he didn't want to see us?  None of this makes sense. What did Justin tell him?

"Well we're really tired too!" Nadia blurts before I can say anything. "I've been tired since you decided to walk out on me and mom!"

Johnson seems taken back for a moment, but quickly regains composure. I can tell he's thinking about how wrong Nadia must have it. How she has no idea why he really left.  He clenches his jaw, as if trying to hold back from saying something he'd regret. "You have not been through what I've been through, okay, Nadia?"

"What the fuck does that even mean?" She hisses. "I haven't been through what you have been through?" 

"I'm not talking about dad," he assures her. I take a deep breath, locking eyes with Hannah. This conversation is getting personal and we shouldn't be in here with them. They need to hash things out on their own. 

"We'll be back soon, don't kill each other or anything," I announce. I nod at Hannah so she gets the message and she follows me out of the room. Neither Nadia nor Johnson saying anything while we leave. 

I breathe a sigh of relief as soon as we're safely out of the hotel and standing out on the sidewalk.

"I have no idea what's going to go down in there," Hannah tells me, her voice unsure. 

"I'm sure they'll be okay..." 

If not, then this whole trip would've been for nothing. Nadia and Johnson would both be hurt and it'd be my fault. I don't think I could live with that.

Nadia

"I've been waiting so long to just see you again, and this is the greeting I get?" I scoff, crossing my arms against my chest. I let my eyes wander to the door that Jack and Hannah just left out of. A part of me wishes they stayed. I didn't wanna be alone with my brother even though I thought I'd want to be, but now I feel even more lost than I did before.

Jack rolls his eyes. "You've gotta be kidding me." He laughs. 

"What's that supposed to mean?" I furrow my eyebrows, letting my anger get the best of me. I know that pretty soon I'm going to be screaming at him.

"I didn't even wanna see you today! I wasn't prepared!" He explains. "Justin told me it was just Hannah who was staying in the hotel, I had no idea you and Gilinsky were gonna show up! He told me he didn't even know where you guys were!"

"And that's my fault?" I question. "What's so special about Hannah that'd you'd wanna see her before you saw your own sister!?" I bite down on my lip to keep the tears in my eyes from spilling over. 

"It's not like that at all!"

"Then what is it like!?"

Taking a deep breath Jack walks over to one of the beds and sits down. He stares at his shoes. I don't bother moving next to him. He'd probably move anyway. "Nadia, there's so much you don't understand."

"Why won't you help me understand? I do know more than you think, Jack told me a lot," I say, uncrossing my arms. My voice has gotten way lower and it seems to surprise my brother. 

"What do you mean?"

"I was sick and tired of Jack lying to me about everything so I asked him to tell me the truth and he did."

Jack's eyes go wide. "What exactly did he tell you?" I can tell he's getting mad so I decide that me telling the truth in this situation wouldn't go over so well. 

"Just that he knew why you came here and stuff like that, not much." 

"You've always been such a horrible liar, Nadie," Jack says. He laughs, but it's not a mean laugh like before. All of his anger seems erased. Bipolar much?

"I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"For everything, for going all crazy on you, I'm just really jumbled up."

"I'm sorry too, I know I came off as rude and shit but I'm just really tired," Jack offers. "I wanted to see Hannah first because I thought maybe she'd give me a place to rest without asking so many questions, ya'know?" 

I nod. "Yeah, but still, I'm a little disappointed."

"You have every right to be."

After a few minutes of silence goes by I have to speak up again, this can't be the end of our talk, I still need to know more. "I still don't completely understand if we're done talking about this."

Jack's eyes are closed, I can tell he was trying to fall asleep. Damn, what was he doing all night that he's so tired? 

"We can talk more in the morning," he mumbles. 

"Okay." 

Pursing my lips I fall onto the floor right in front of the closet and criss-cross my legs. So much is going on in my head right now I don't even know what to think. My brother, the one I've been looking for this whole time, I finally found him but it doesn't feel like I have. 

I had all these fantasies of being reunited with him in my head but none of them were prepared for this. I mean, there wasn't even any hugging. Just yelling and then some apologizes and now nap time. I guess a part of me just thought it'd be more exciting than this. 

Leaning my head against the wall closest to the bathroom I pull my phone out of my pocket. I contemplate on texting Sammy or Mom that Jack is safe, but I decide against it. They'd make us come home right away. And I don't know if any of us are ready for that.

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IM SORRY!!! i feel like this chapter was boring af and the fact that i havent updated in forever makes it even worse and the fact that there's probably a lot of typos bc i don't have time to read it over and edit it is really bad but thank you anyway for being so patient. 

school is starting and im going to be a junior so i'm going to be busy af but i will honestly try my best to update whenever i can. there's not TOO much left in this story but there's still a handful of things i gotta get in before i can call it over lol.

anyway yeah im sorry if you thought this was a sucky chapter bc i sort of did too but hey it happens, comment and vote if you'd like and chapter 34 will be up as soon as I've got the time.

- gilinskyshigh